Yasuyuki Numata

Yasuyuki Numata (11 October 1898-9 January 1959) was a Lieutenant-General of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War.

Biography
Yasuyuki Numata was born in 1898 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. Numata graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1919 and from the Army War College in 1927, and he rose in the ranks of the IJA during peacetime. Numata served in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1939, and he was later transferred back home to take command of the IJA 41st Infantry Division. This division took part in the invasion of the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea at the start of World War II in December 1941, and Numata fought against the forces of Australia and the United States on the island for years. By June 1944, he was headquartered in Bigabu and was fighting against the US Marine Corps on the island, and he was gradually forced southwest as the tide of the war turned against Japan. He was forced to surrender by year's end, with his army being trapped between the sea and the advancing US 6th Infantry Division under Edward Baehr. Numata was paroled after the war, and he died in 1959 of cancer.